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Klaus Schroiff at Photozone.de has written up a review of the brand new Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS lens.

This lens currently isn’t available in the United States for some reason — and according to the Photozone review, it won’t be available in the U.S. at all, although I’m not sure if I completely believe that. People are very interested in this lens, considering that it’s a small and light long zoom (being an EF-S lens designed for APS-C sized sensors), has image stabilization, and is relatively cheap: it’s selling on amazon.co.uk for a little over US$400. It’ll give you an effective field of view of 88-400mm.

The review finds that the build quality is pretty decent, or at least better than expected for a cheap plastic lens.

Interestingly, Klaus had trouble when using the lens with a Digital Rebel XT, only getting good results on a Digital Rebel XTi or 40D:

The AF speed is pretty good and the noise level during operations remains on a very low level. Unfortunately the test camera (EOS 350D) didn’t really like the lens. At 55mm it had big troubles to lock on reliably and in the field things weren’t all that convincing beyond either. This aspect is much better on an 40D or 400D though.

As far as the claimed 4 stops of improvement due to image stabilization, he wasn’t able to reproduce that, though he reports that his readers are getting good image stabilization results with the lens.

Vignetting, something APS-C sensor shooters don’t usually worry about, is an issue with this lens. You get close to 1 EV of vignetting at 55m @ f/4 and f/5-f/5.6 between 135mm and 250mm. Apertures at f/8 or smaller had minimal vignetting, and f/5 is usable (about 0.25 EV) if you’re at 55mm.

Resolution turned out good:

The lens produced pretty impressive resolution figures in the MTF lab. The resolution characteristic is generally very good across the image frame. Unsurprisingly the lens performs best at 55mm but there’s only a slight deterioration towards the long end of the zoom range – surely the benefit of the large UD element in the front lens group. Subjectively the contrast level suffers somewhat at longer focal lengths though.

Chromatic aberration wasn’t a big issue.

The conclusion is that this is very good lens with a few shortcomings that are probably not a big deal:

Technically the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS is a tiny lens with a great performance potential. The resolution is very good across the range. Chromatic aberrations are basically a non-issue. The level of distortions remain moderate. The most obvious flaw is, unsurprisingly, vignetting at large apertures. The build quality is fine for a lens in this class and it is one step up from the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS that we’ve seen here recently. Regarding the target market you may surely forgive the plastic mount. The AF (micro-) motor is pretty fast and silent. So’s everything cool here ? Well, the AF accuracy didn’t really convince in the field – specifically at the wide-end of the zoom range – but to be fair this is much better on an EOS 40D (e.g.) with its improved AF capabilities. I had some trouble with the image stabilizer in the field but according to early reader feedback this impression seems to be an exception to the rule. If so the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS has certainly the potential to be another hot seller.

Unfortunately, the report of poor autofocus performance with the Canon Digital Rebel XT is a big deal for me, since that’s the camera I’d be using the lens with, myself. I’m still interested in trying it out one of these days, if it ever makes it across the oceans to us poor, deprived Americans.

Lens reviews aren’t as common as actual camera reviews, so I’m always glad to find some. There was a Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS review that I talked about a few weeks ago, and now there’s a new one. This review was posted at the-digital-picture.com.

As expected, the build quality is still pretty cheap and plastic. They point out that the “zoom ring makes a not-loud scratching/brushing noise inside the lens as it is rotated.” Sounds a little scary. I’ve only played with the original EF-S 18-55mm lens once or twice, but I don’t remember a scratching or brushing noise. Of course, I could have just blocked it out as if it was a traumatic event in my life. The upside of a cheap plastic construction is that you have a very lightweight lens, only 7 oz (200g).

Manual focusing is tough, what with the lack of full-time manual focus as on a Canon USM lens, and because, well, the lens just doesn’t sound designed for it:

Manual focusing with the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens is difficult at best. With no dedicated focus ring, this lens uses the extending portion of the inner barrel as its manual focus ring (see the thin ribbed ring at the end of the lens?). Since the inner barrel has a lot of play in it, the viewfinder image moves very noticeably during MF unless you use a very light and very precise touch.

On the plus side, they report that the autofocus is pretty good, generally pretty quiet and fast, considering that it’s a non-USM lens. And they point out that it can get away with a lesser AF system since the lens is so slow (f/3.5 to f/5.6); you’re going to get a relatively deep depth of field — when compared to a faster lens, like an f/1.8 — so the auto focus capabilities are less critical.

Also, Canon has improved the bokeh on this IS version of the lens over the old 18-55mm EF-S lens:

A shallow DOF with a blurred foreground/background is more difficult to produce with a slow lens than with a faster lens of the same focal length. The upside is that the 18-55 IS uses a new circular aperture that delivers a good quality OOF (Out of Focus) blur — a bit better than the 18-55 II. OOF points of light remain circles even with a stopped down aperture (where the number of blades and blade shape affect the results the most).

Canon states that the image stabilization in the lens should give you 4 stops of shake correction. The reviewer finds slightly less than that, but still an impressive amount of stabilization:

Canon is claiming 4-stops of camera shake correction. My personal experience shows a solid 3 stops of correction at 18mm and 3 stops or a little better at 55mm. I am basing my numbers on comparison testing using an identical shooting stance and situation (apples-to-apples). I am getting sharp images at or longer than 1/4 sec at 18mm and 1/6 sec at 55mm using a not-especially-stable standing position. Of course, if your subject is moving, you must be able to pan with them or your results will be blurred at these shutter speeds.

Perhaps the best part of the new IS design is that this entire lens costs less than the IS upgrade costs on Canon’s current lenses where this feature is optional (70-200mm L lenses). This is the least expensive Canon EF or EF-S lens ever offered with image stabilization.

How about the optical performance? The review states that it performs very well for the price of the lens, which sounds like a bit of a backhanded compliment to me.

From 18mm through 35mm or so, center sharpness is reasonable wide open and reaches its optimal sharpness at f/5.6. Corners in this focal length range are relatively sharp. Wide open center-of-the-lens performance remains similar throughout the focal length range until the long end where this lens becomes soft. At 55mm, even f/8 is not as sharp as I’d like to see.

Color is good but contrast could be a little better (this is most noticeable when comparing with the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens). CA is somewhat strong toward the corners but flare is very well controlled. Vignetting is not severe, but noticeable on the wide end.

He reports that it’s significantly sharper than the EF-S 18-55mm II non-IS lens, especially wide open in the corners of the frame. At f/8 and higher the difference is smaller, but the IS version still has an advantage.

Of course, then you look at the sample picture comparison between both of the 18-55mm lenses and the Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, as well as the more expensive Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens, and they just blow away both of the 18-55mm lenses. You can really see the difference between a cheap low-end lens and a much better lens in the comparison (scroll down the review page until you see the picture of the front of the GMC truck, and then look at the different shots available with the different lenses, all taken with a Canon 40D.)

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that shooting those at 55mm means you are using the weakest focal length of the 18-55mm lens, so performance will be better if you’re not zoomed in that far. There’s another comparison further down the page of a tree and a roof that was shot at 18mm, which still shows a clear advantage to the more expensive lenses. There’s just no free lunch here. Too bad, I really enjoy free lunches, especially when the dessert is a sweet lens.

Anyway, be sure to check out the full review for all the details.

SLRgear recently reviewed the new Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens for the Canon EOS SLR camera line.

They are extremely impressed by the quality of the lens wide open, which is something you wouldn’t expect from a $200 lens:

However they’ve done it, the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS shows excellent sharpness at 18mm wide-open at f/3.5, a focal length/aperture combination which typically shows off the weakness of most consumer-grade lenses. Image sharpness is essentially even across the frame, and doesn’t exceed 2 units on our scale of 1-12. For a lens of this price point, this is amazing performance.

They found the best image quality at f/5.6 and a focal length of 35mm. Diffraction was first seen at f/16, but image quality stayed good until the really small apertures (e.g., f/29.) They write that “at that point, the image is quite soft, but at least the softness is uniform at between 4 and 5 units. All in all, excellent performance.” Sounds good to me!

They also report that chromatic aberration is “remarkably reduced” over the previous non-IS version of the 18-55mm (which was a common kit lens, for example with the Canon Digital Rebel XT.) On the other hand, vignetting is just very slightly worse on this lens than on the older one, although they take pains to point out that it’s a very minor and practically negligible difference.

Distortion is about 1% at the worst, and looks best around 40mm. They point out that the distortion changes very linearly with focal length, something that you didn’t see with the older version of the lens.

Focusing speed and performance are both reported as being good:

Autofocus performance is fast and quiet, with the whole lens racking through its focus in just under one second. While focus performance is going to depend alot on the body the lens is mounted to, on the digital Rebel Xti I sampled the lens with, I didn’t have a single problem with focus, and focusing between points was lightning quick.

The build is pretty much the same as the old 18-55mm lens, light and plastic. They don’t try to measure what you get from its image stabilization, but state that they wouldn’t be surprised if it lived up to Canon’s claims of four stops of exposure improvement.

I’m not sure that image stabilization makes too much sense on this lens, but I suppose it can’t hurt, especially when it’s not that much more than the non-IS version (roughly $200 versus roughly $150.) Although my beloved 50mm f/1.8 without any IS is still going to be much better in low light at that focal length, since even 4 stops of improvement isn’t going to make up for that f/5.6 largest aperture at 55mm on this one.

Be sure to read the whole review for more details, and sample pictures and performance graphs.

naturfotograf.com has a review posted of the new Nikon Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED G FX lens that was announced along with the Nikon D3 and D300.

The lens was only tested with a D2X, meaning that only the center portion of the lens was evaluated. Using the lens with a D3 — which will have to wait until people can more easily get their hands on them — will be more revealing. That said, it sounds like a great lens:

I’ll run tests on this lens on a D3 later to confirm these findings, but as of now, the new 24-70/2.8 Nikkor is the reference for all other midrange zoom lenses.

There really aren’t any negative points in the short review. The closest thing to a negative point is that there is a small amount of pincushion distortion. But hoping for a zoom lens with none would be getting a little carried away, and the 24-70mm FX comes through with flying colors:

In terms of geometric distortion, the 24-70 shows very low pincushion towards the long end on D2X, a little more on the D3. Towards the 24 mm end, almost no distortion at all could be seen, just vestiges of a barrel type. It is obvious when you swap the lens between DX- and FX-cameras that the distortion pattern is somewhat wave-shaped across the frame so the nearly straight lines in the corners of the DX frame can be curved a little more on the D3, and vice versa. However, levels of distortion are so low that they encroach on those found in fixed-focal length territory. You can shoot architecture with this zoom lens. Simple as that, really.

Sounds like a promising lens, I’ll be looking forward to some reviews of how it works on the D3 when they’re ready.